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re: Supreme Court Upholds Obama Health Care Subsidies[W:700]

Regardless of one's views on the Affordable Care Act, the Supreme Court’s majority decision appears to be the correct reading of Congress’ intent when adopting the law. The following excerpts of the Court’s decision are particularly relevant:

And by using the words “such Exchange,” the Act indicates that State and Federal Exchanges should be the same. But State and Federal Exchanges would differ in a fundamental way if tax credits were available only on State Exchanges—one type of Exchange would help make insurance more affordable by providing billions of dollars to the States’ citizens; the other type of Exchange would not.

Had Congress intended any other approach, the legislation would in effect have been largely self-defeating. In other words, the Congress would have created a massive escape clause by which the status quo could be preserved, even as Congress intended to change the status quo.

It’s difficult to imagine that Congress would have expended all its effort on a highly-contentious matter to then allow others to easily render its efforts irrelevant. At worse, one would be dealing with a technical error, not the intent of Congress. Essentially only political cynics who believe the government has become near-totally dysfunctional could believe that Congress would have deliberately taken on a difficult issue, readily assumed the costs of doing so, all the while intending to make its law structurally irrelevant.

Put another way, does Congress intend to pass laws merely for the sake of illusion but no desire that they take effect? That's what a contrary decision would have required. It is no surprise that a 6-3 majority chose to uphold the law.

This does not mean that the Supreme Court endorsed the merits of the law, much less the impact of an adverse ruling's outcome. Instead, assuming Congress is rational, it concluded that Congress' original intent was that states could take the lead on creating exchanges, but in the absence of such leadership, the federal government could create such exchanges. All exchanges would enjoy the same tax treatment.

Of course, I will note that I could be wrong. But that's how I see it.

re: Supreme Court Upholds Obama Health Care Subsidies[W:700]

Originally Posted by Μολὼν λαβέ

Cheaper for who? Cheaper how? Both premiums and deductibles have significantly increased.

I just heard a little bit of Obama speaking. One thing he mentioned was keeping premiums down. I just wonder how anyone on the left swallows that one, and still claims to have integrity. He will keep lying as long as they keep supporting it.

"We have met the enemy and they are ours..." -- Oliver Hazard Perry
"I don't want a piece of you... I want the whole thing!" -- Bob Barker

re: Supreme Court Upholds Obama Health Care Subsidies[W:700]

Originally Posted by roughdraft274

Everyone that was in congress that has spoken on the matter has insisted that the intent of the law was that subsidies would also apply to the federal exchange. That makes a huge difference between this and some instance where someone just wanted to change the definition of what a "state" is.

What matters is the language of the law, and in drafting ACA they all failed to take their "floor time" speaking and apply it to the actual language used. The government should have lost the case forcing the remedy to be in Congress, which is how this is supposed to work. The Supreme Court is not supposed to be crafting the law for where Congress failed.

"Every time something really bad happens, people cry out for safety, and the government answers by taking rights away from good people." - Penn Jillette.

re: Supreme Court Upholds Obama Health Care Subsidies[W:700]

This destroys the middle class, who are being raped by these sky high deductibles.

Originally Posted by Μολὼν λαβέ

Cheaper for who? Cheaper how? Both premiums and deductibles have significantly increased.

Any evidence to back that up? Has the rate of increase slowed over the past few years?

I gotta laugh at the response from reactionaries in this thread. They're all over the lot. "It's great news! Now the Democrats will be forced to continue defending the Act." "What a disaster for the country!" Just what I'd expect from people who can't think things through clearly.

The legislation will continue to gain in popularity, and for good reason. A win for Democrats and democracy.

"I loved him. You loved him. What good have we done him? Love. Look at yourself. They have a name for faces like that." — Anna Schmidt, in The Third Man……Anna walks away

re: Supreme Court Upholds Obama Health Care Subsidies[W:700]

Originally Posted by ocean515

It's their obligation to work on legislation as they see fit. I prefer Republicans not clean up the mess Democrats made. It's their plan, they passed it without a single Republican vote, in the dead of night, during the Holidays. Let them clean up their mess. If people are unsatisfied, let them remember who was responsible.

Seems very fair to me.

Yes and very appropriate considering that Republicans have shown no concern for the public good in at least 7 years. Why should they start now?

re: Supreme Court Upholds Obama Health Care Subsidies[W:700]

Originally Posted by US Conservative

Conservatives didn't draft a piss poor bill, so poorly written that it needs to go to SCOTUS to be interpreted.

The problem I have with all of this is that it is not something that was written years and years ago, it is a new piece of legislation and they could have written "federal" in there just as easily as the wrote "state". They didn't.
Words don't matter anymore? Thanks, SCOTUS, you suck.

"We have met the enemy and they are ours..." -- Oliver Hazard Perry
"I don't want a piece of you... I want the whole thing!" -- Bob Barker

re: Supreme Court Upholds Obama Health Care Subsidies[W:700]

Originally Posted by iguanaman

Yes and very appropriate considering that Republicans have shown no concern for the public good in at least 7 years. Why should they start now?

That's the problem, they have shown concern but Obama's threatened to veto anything to do with Obamacare. Hell, while insane Harry was still running the Senate any bills that showed concern were shelved and never even brought to the floor. But don't let me derail your ideologue-ing... please continue about how Republicans are all evil...

re: Supreme Court Upholds Obama Health Care Subsidies[W:700]

Originally Posted by iguanaman

Yes and very appropriate considering that Republicans have shown no concern for the public good in at least 7 years. Why should they start now?

Yes, I am sure they are aware that everything is their fault. I'm sure they shouldn't expect any other sentiment from liberal/progressives. Liberal/Progressives put out a mess called Obamacare, and it's the Republicans fault.

Dang, I wonder if I'll live long enough to see a liberal/progressive take responsibility for anything.

President Donald J Trump, 45th President of the United States of America. A victory born in the hearts and minds of Everyday Americans

re: Supreme Court Upholds Obama Health Care Subsidies[W:700]

Originally Posted by Μολὼν λαβέ

Cheaper for who? Cheaper how? Both premiums and deductibles have significantly increased.

Healthcare spending increased at the lowest pace in 2014 in nearly 40 years. Do I expect premiums and deductibles to increase? Absolutely - they will probably increase at a rate slightly higher than the rate of inflation (same as has been occurring for 40 years) and it is likely that they will increase by a faster rate over the next year or two while insurance companies get adjusted to the new population of individuals requiring health care.

With that said, the law allows for unprecedented transparency (if an insurance company wishes to increase its premiums, it must first make a request to the government with its proposed increases and await approval) and competition (you now have a central location where you can easily compare and contrast the numerous insurance plans for your area and the number of insurance plans has gone up since the introduction of the ACA, not down).

re: Supreme Court Upholds Obama Health Care Subsidies[W:700]

Originally Posted by CanadaJohn

You're much more ideologically equipped to be the bleeding heart supporter of the poor, hard done by Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. It is not the job of a Supreme Court Justice, and certainly not the job of the Chief Justice of the court, to play politics with the law. There are many issues that come before a court that are contentious and often that even a majority of the public support or oppose. Are you suggesting that the Supreme Court should rule via public opinion polling?

Chief Justice Roberts has been a disgrace, in my view, in that he has in effect practiced the equivalent of jury nullification. He has taken his position and substituted his own personal viewpoint on the validity of law for an actual interpretation of the law as written.

No, I not saying that at all. All rulings are not the same. Bringing down Obamacare would be especially messy as it would be the cause of many deaths of many people who depend upon Obamacare.